Yankee levantine : David Offley and Ottoman – American relations in the early nineteenth century

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Abstract

This study focuses on the role of David Offley who settled in Smyrna and opened the first American trade house in 1811 which lead to the establishment of economic, diplomatic, social and cultural relations between the United States and the Ottoman Empire. Through his own personal efforts, he made an arrangement with Ottoman office holders, which put Americans almost at the level of the most favored nations and established the groundwork for the first formal treaty between the United States and the Ottoman Empire, concluded and ratified in 1831. During this period a small American Levantine community was established in Smyrna, Turkey opium became an important trade item in American trade to China and diplomacy between the US and Ottoman State entered its infant stages.